For an Arab-Hebrew Palestinian Workers
State in a Socialist Federation of
the Near East

10,000-plus
demonstrators
at
leftist-led
protest
in
Tel
Aviv
June
6
against
43
years of Israeli occupation
of Palestinian Arab territories and the May 31 Israeli commando attack
on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.(Photo:
Activestills)

The
Israeli lockdown of the territories it conquered in 1967 leaves
millions of
Palestinians in enforced isolation. Turning Gaza into a giant
Nazi-style
concentration camp and the West Bank into a series of apartheid-like
“Bantustans” is intended to induce despair, a feeling that all
resistance is
futile. Yet in 43 years the Arab population has not ceased to fight,
and they
are not alone. The Israeli massacre galvanized opposition to the
blockade
throughout the region and the world. More flotillas are on the way. How
will
Israel handle an Iranian flotilla, as Tehran has threatened – rappel
down a
rope with the Revolutionary Guard waiting at the other end? What about
the boatload
of German Jews, set to sail in July, coming to the aid of Gaza?
Israelis with a
sense of history worry that this could echo the 1947 Exodus
clash in which British colonial authorities seized a
shipload of Jewish Holocaust survivors, but lost the propaganda war.
The
liberal Zionist Ha’aretz (10 June)
forecast: “The Gaza flotilla episode heralds the onset of a long, tense
summer
in the Middle East.” Earlier (1 June) it warned that “this could even
end in a
third intifada, or Palestinian
uprising. In military terms, this can be considered a ‘life-altering
event’.”

Once
again, as in 1987-1993 and from 2000-2005, Palestinian youth with
slingshots
and stones could face off against Israeli troops with Galil assault
rifles and
armored bulldozers. But what has the IDF general staff (if not the
“political
echelon”) worried is that this time it could be in conjunction with
widespread
disturbances among Israeli Arabs. If it had to simultaneously put down
protests
on both sides of the Green Line,1
even
the Israeli military juggernaut would be challenged. Even more
importantly, unrest could spread through the region, particularly next
door in
Egypt, where strong man Hosni Mubarak is dying and his military-based
regime is
fraying. Since 2006 there has been an on-going strike wave by Egyptian
workers,
from textile mills to government services. Militant Egyptian workers
have also
taken up the cause of the besieged population of Gaza (see accompanying
article, “Egypt: Mubarak Regime Tottering”). And the unrest in Iran,
while
temporarily suppressed by heavy repression, could spark an explosion of
working-class struggle in the mullahs’ republic

But
what of the working class in Palestine itself. Many on the left
internationally
see Israel as one solid reactionary mass, and there is no doubt that
ever since
the proclamation of the “Jewish state” six decades ago the Zionists
have held
total sway. (Prior to 1948, there was a history of joint Arab-Hebrew
workers
struggles in Palestine.2)
However,
the
Arab minority in Israel of roughly 1.3 million people makes up
almost a fifth of the population and tens of thousands live in cities
with
mixed Hebrew and Arab population (Jaffa, Acre and Tel Aviv). Moreover,
there is
still something of a left in Israel. A candidate of the Hadash slate
and leader
of the Communist Party received 35 percent of the vote in last
November’s
mayoral election in Tel Aviv.3

Arab and
Hebrew protest against Israeli massace of Gaza aid flotilla in Haifa,
June 1.(Photo: Activestills)

In
response to Israel’s Gaza flotilla attack there was a general strike on
June 1 in
the Arab areas of the north as well as sizeable protests in Tel Aviv.
On June
6, some 10,000 or more marched in a demonstration initiated by the
Hadash
electoral list led by the Israeli CP. Many of the marchers were liberal
Zionists, particularly of Uri Avnery’s “Peace Now” movement, who simply
want a
different policy for the Israeli state. And the protests are still
relatively
small. But fascistic elements and right-wing West Bank settlers are
widely despised
in Israel, and most of population does not want to live in a permanent
garrison
state. A military debacle or widespread unrest that drains Israel’s
limited
manpower could produce cracks in the Zionists’ until now monolithic
domination
of political life.

Internationally,
for decades most of the left in the West has basically tailed the
dominant
nationalist currents in the Middle East, in the name of building
solidarity
movements. When in 1974 Arafat’s Fatah, under pressure from
imperialism, came
out for a “two-state” position, tacitly recognizing Israel, the
reformist left pretty
much followed suit. Those Western leftists who liked to spice up their
reformist “two-stage” politics with vicarious support for Guevara-style
guerrillaism gravitated around the left nationalists of the Popular
Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Democratic Front for the
Liberation of
Palestine (DFLP). However, after engaging in a wave of indiscriminate
terrorism
(aircraft hijackings and bombings and the 1968 Lod Airport massacre in
the case
of the PFLP, and the 1974 Ma’alot school massacre in the case of the
DFLP), these
“rejectionists” ended up capitulating to Fatah. In contrast, authentic
Trotskyists from the outset denounced the chimera of a Palestinian
mini-state
as a fraud.

When
in 1993 under Bill Clinton’s aegis Arafat and Israel prime minister
Yitzhak
Rabin signed the Oslo Accords setting up the Palestinian Authority, the
opportunist left once again supported this, some singing hosannas,
others more
critically. But a decade later, as the disastrous consequences of the
Oslo
agreement became evident, with a powerless P.A. serving as window
dressing for
the Israeli occupation, much of the Western left switched back to the
original
PLO program, for a “democratic secular Palestine.” This is the position
today
of the British Socialist Workers Party and its erstwhile comrades of
the International
Socialist Organization in the U.S., as well as the view of much of the
Palestinian intelligentsia in exile who have come to despair of the
“two-state
solution.”4

Those
calling for a “democratic secular” (and implicitly capitalist)
Palestine
propose to treat Israeli Jews as just another religious group, like
Muslims and
Christians. Aside from the fact that Israeli Jews are mostly not
religious
(they are overwhelmingly secular, and a majority don’t attend
synagogue), this ignores
the existence of a Hebrew nation which came into existence on the
territory of
Palestine. This mirrors a standard argument of right-wing Zionists, who
deny
that Palestinian Arabs are a nation. As in the case of many nations,
the
formation of Israel took place as a result of a historical crime,
perpetrated
by the imperialists, notably the United States, who refused to accept
Jewish
refugees and Holocaust survivors after World War II.5 Yet
under the hammer blows of repression, two entities that in terms
of
common
language, territory, economy, culture and history fully qualify as
nations have
been compacted on the territory of Palestine, and which for Leninists
therefore
have the democratic right of self-determination, that is, to a
separate,
independent state.

Under
present conditions, the Hebrew population is unlikely to accept simply
being a
minority with democratic rights in a majority Arab Palestine: they
would expect
to be oppressed just as Israel has viciously subjugated the
Palestinians over
the past six decades. If multinational states like Belgium and Canada
with
different nationalities living largely adjacent to each other and with
similar
living standards are splitting apart as a result of nationalist
tensions and
national oppression, what are the prospects for a capitalist state in
which two
nations lay claim to the same territory, towns and even houses, and
where the
privileged minority long suppressed the impoverished majority? Those
who call
for a democratic secular Palestine under capitalist rule have in mind
the
example of South Africa, and many talk of “Israeli apartheid” today.
But there
is a crucial difference. In South Africa, white oppressors and the
black,
colored and Indian oppressed were part of a single nation, in Palestine
there
are two quite distinct national entities.

The
only way that competing national rights and the national oppression of
the
Palestinians can be transcended in a single state is through a socialist revolution that utterly
transforms the economy and society as a whole, and which is the product
of a
joint struggle by Arab and Hebrew workers. Such a revolution would have
to
transform the consciousness of the Hebrew-speaking population to be
successful.
It would also have to deal with sizeable numbers of Zionist butchers,
fascists
and dead-end counterrevolutionaries who will never be integrated into a
society
with a Palestinian majority. But it is important that justice be meted
out to
these criminals by their own people. If one can overcome the chasm in
living
conditions by vastly improving the lot of the oppressed majority, do
away with
segregation into separate communities, share scarce resources
equitably, lay
the basis for a full flowering of culture in both languages, then it is
possible to overcome national antagonisms – but that is utterly impossible under capitalism.

In
the 1940s, while the Stalinists of the Communist Party supported
partition of
Palestine and the formation of Israel, including bringing in weapons
that were
used to massacre and drive out the Arabs, the Palestinian Trotskyists
opposed
partition and called for joint revolutionary struggle against
imperialism by
Arab and Hebrew workers.6
Into
the 1980s, the Spartacist League (SL) in the U.S. and its International
Communist League (ICL) affiliates called for an Arab/Hebrew Palestinian
workers
state in a socialist federation of the Near East, as we in the IG/LFI
do today.
However, the SL/ICL today no longer raises the demand for a bi-national
workers
state. Declaring that the demise of the Soviet Union produced a
qualitative
regression in working-class consciousness, the SL/ICL evidently
despairs of
Hebrew-speaking and Palestinian workers constructing a common state.
But what
is the alternative? Two separate workers states in the same area? But
how could
class-conscious Hebrew workers smash the Zionist state except together
with
their Palestinian sisters and brothers? And after victory they
separate?

The
League for the Fourth International calls to defend the Palestinian
people, not
only against Israel, but also against U.S. imperialism, which finances,
militarily arms and diplomatically props up the Zionist oppressors. We
demand
that Israel get out of all the territories occupied since the 1967 war
(including East Jerusalem), and along with it must go the Zionist
settlements
on the West Bank, which serve
a
military function of subjugating the Arab population. Trotskyists
oppose the
existence of the Israeli theocratic state and all confessional or
religion-based states: separation of church and state is a basic
bourgeois-democratic gain, and a “Jewish state” in Israel just like an
“Islamic
republic” in Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, or a
“Christian
state” such as Vichy France, is inherently undemocratic.

The
LFI also supports the Palestinians’ right to return to their homes and
lands.
But the forcible expulsion of Jews from Palestine today would also be
criminal.
Recognizing the right of self-determination for both
Hebrew speakers and Arabs in Palestine, we note that the
conflicting national claims of two interpenetrated peoples in the same
small
territory cannot be equitably resolved in a capitalist framework.
Moreover, any
Palestinian state must include present-day Jordan, an artificial
country which
was part of Palestine under the League of Nations mandate and where
close to 2
million Palestinians live today, many still crammed into refugee camps.If a Palestinian mini-state were somehow to
be established alongside Israel, we defend the Palestinians’ right
to be
freed from
occupation under the Zionist jackboot. But this would be an obstacle to
resolving
the national oppression of Palestinian Arabs, Therefore, we seek to
build an
Arab/Hebrew Trotskyist party in all of Palestine to lead the fight for
a
binational Arab/Hebrew workers state
in the framework of a socialist
federation of the Near East.

However,
distant that prospect may seem today, it is the only basis on which
Muslims,
Jews, Christians, Druzes – not to mention Kurds, Zoroastrians and
numerous other
national and religious minorities throughout the region – can overcome
sectarian divisions and live and develop in harmony. Achieving this is
a vital
task not only of Hebrew-speaking and Arab workers in Palestine, but of
the
world proletariat as we struggle to smash imperialism through
international
socialist revolution. ■

1 The
armistice line established following the 1948 war, leaving the Zionists
in
control of almost four-fifths of pre-partition Palestine. In 1967, Israel conquered the rest, occupying
East
Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

2 See our
article, “Arab/Hebrew Workers’ Struggles Before the Birth of Israel,”
in The Internationalist No. 9,
January-February 2001.

3 Hadash
(Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) is an electoral list led by
the
Communist Party of Israel (the CPI or Maki, according to its initials
in
Hebrew), which holds four seats in the Knesset, mostly elected by Arab
votes.However, Hadash/Maki accepts the
existence of Israel, set up by the Zionists as a Jewish state. This
renders the
CPI’s formal anti-Zionism moot, since in everything from citizenship
criteria
to the military draft and myriad other aspects of civic life, the
Israeli state
is inherently oppressive toward Arab citizens.

4 The
United Secretariat (which masquerades as the Fourth International) is
split
between “two-staters” and “one-staters,” while both the Committee for a
Workers
International, led by Peter Taaffe, and Alan Woods’ International
Marxist
Tendency, accept the existence of Israel, and the latter
entered the
Israeli CP.

5 For
example, genocide of the native population, slavery and theft of
Mexican lands
in the case of the United States; subjugation of the Scots, Welsh and
Irish by
England in the case of Britain; the slaughter of Occitans and Huguenots
in
France, etc.

6 See “The
Fight for Trotskyism in Palestine,”
in
The Internationalist No. 12,
Summer 2001.